Maritime university enrolment dropping faster than expected: Globe

BY ELIZABETH CHURCH

June 27, 2007

University enrolment in Canada's three Maritime provinces is dropping sooner and more dramatically than expected thanks to the lure of western oil-patch jobs, a declining population and the end of the recent flood of Ontario students, a new report says.

If current trends continue, the number of university students could fall by 10 per cent or more in the next decade, predicts the report, produced by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission and released yesterday. In the past two school years alone, undergraduate levels have fallen by 4.5 per cent after reaching a peak in 2004-2005.

"It has been quite a shift. We didn't expect the decline to hit us so quickly," said Mireille Duguay, chief executive officer of the commission, an agency created by the Maritime premiers.

A decrease in the university-aged population of the provinces has long been expected, but Ms. Duguay said the effects of that demographic trend have been accelerated by an increase in the number of high-school students choosing not to go to university. "We are seeing students make different choices," she said. "They are leaving the province, they are staying and taking jobs or they are going to college."

. . .

At Dalhousie University in Halifax, for example, where enrolment has remained steady, fewer than 60 per cent of undergraduates come from the Maritimes and 23 per cent are from Ontario, a spokeswoman said.

Mr. Halpin said the academic community is also focusing on increasing the percentage of local high-school students who go on to university.

That is key, Ms. Duguay said, because another recent study showed that once they graduate, about 90 per cent of university students stay in the region.

Full story here.